by Nora Jay

“Woman who stood on ship’s railing for selfie barred for life from cruise line”
—CNN

So here I’m standing on a ship—
Yes, actually on a rail
(You need to view the YouTube clip
To get a proper sense of scale).

I know my arms are quite a blur,
But I was stretching like a cross
(See #SexyMariner,
And #SexyAlbatross).

That’s it, though, for my ocean trips—
The captain was a total pill,
And now I’m banned from cruising ships.
Check out this 10th-floor window sill!

by Alex Steelsmith

Last week Benedict Cumberbatch joined other celebrities who signed an open letter admitting they are “climate hypocrites,” but urging that attention be drawn to the more pressing issue of climate emergency. The letter says they will continue to speak out on the issue, and that their high-carbon lifestyles will continue to cause climate harm.

Wiggily piggily
Benedict Cumberbatch
makes a concession that
few will admit:

though his behavior’s not
unhypocritical,
this is a crisis; he
simply won’t quit.

by Chris O’Carroll

Donald Trump snorts lines of coke
Off Tucker Carlson’s ass.

Mitch McConnell’s bare hands choke
Poor children every day.

Zuckerberg supplies Assad
With all his poison gas.

If they were in a Facebook ad,
These lies would be OK.

by Julia Griffin

“Plan to exhume James Joyce’s remains fires international ‘battle of the bones’.”
—The Guardian

As Bloom desired his kidneys (“his”
For breakfast, not dialysis),
Or as he longed for Molly’s heart
(Her least outrageous longed-for part):
Like him, his countrymen now yearn
For Joyce’s long-delayed return.
They want to have him nicely packed
And handled with respect and tact;
The son his land so proudly owns
Is not some common heap of bones.
Will Zurich give him up? They might
At least be moved by Dublin’s plight—
This urge to honor and anoint
Which somehow seems to miss the point.
Once someone craved to kiss the hand
That wrote Ulysses. “Understand,”
Replied that literary prince,
“It has had other duties since.”

by Bruce Bennett

Do “all roads lead to Putin?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
told The Washington Post she asked President Trump that question
before she left a White House meeting.

Do “all roads lead to Putin”?
Why, yes, that now seems clear,
as Nancy said to Donald,
and that has led to here,

Though what that next may lead to
is anybody’s guess.
The road ahead is murky,
but must we take it? Yes.

by Claudia Gary

From walking out in space
to walking out of meetings,
in elegance and grace
they soar above his tweetings.

by Ruth S. Baker

“Residents of a Sydney suburb have been warned to be on the lookout for a massive snake … after its skin was spotted at a property on Thursday.”
—breakingnews.travel

O the hubbub in the suburb!
Local panic is profuse,
For a goer of a boa
Is at large and on the loose.

If you’re certain you’ve a serpent,
‘Tis no time to act perverse.
Be not stupid, do not spot it:
Spots will only make it worse.